Who should be paid more?

​​An unexpected equity-based lesson in my Algebra 2.

It all happened unexpectedly. This morning, I was using Desmos's Avi and Benita's repair shop to demonstrate the power of the exponential function. As the class continues to move on, it has turned out to be a meaningful lesson for my students and me. 

I took Ms. Anurupa Ganguly's class- The mathematical heart- last fall and learned the knowledge about an equity-based lesson, but I have no idea that it all happened in a sudden with a Desmos lesson. 

It all began on the first page.  "Avi and Benita run a repair shop. They need some help, so they hire you." Somehow I think repair shop is too far away from my students, so I changed it into 7-11, a convenience shop that is everywhere in Taiwan. 

Suddenly, one of my students murmured: "I don't want to work for 7-11." 
"Really, Why?
"Because it only pays the minimum wage." 
"Oh, why do you think 7-11 only pays the minimum wage?"
"Maybe because people who work for 7-11 don't deserve to earn more."
"Why don't you guys think people who work for 7-11 don't deserve to earn more? Don't you think they work hard?"

"Yeah, they work hard, but...."
"So, you're saying people who work hard sometimes get paid less than people who don't work that hard."
"Who do you think should earn more money than people who work for 7-11? Do you think they really deserve it?"

"Also, you said you don't want to take work home, but almost all jobs with some responsibility required the people that are in charge of them keep an eye on them even if they are off."

As the class progressed, we began to discuss different wage policy enacted by the two owners: "Avi and Benita." While more and more slides showed up discussing different wage policy, and the result of different wage policy, my students started to have some comments.

"Who would pay his employee with an exponential rule?" 
" Not even give the employee a raise every day."
"I think the owners' brains were broken."
"So now you think if you're the employer, then you started to refuse to SHARE your profit with your employees while as an employee, you want to get as much as you can."

I love this lesson! I enjoyed every moment of it. Not only we learned the powerful magic of exponents, but we also had some great conversations with each other. 

How interesting the two perspectives on one issue play in the role of decision making. 

Most of us agreed on hard workers should be paid more, while we also agreed on the fact that assembly line workers work a lot harder than a CEO.